Fact Check: Sufi ritual video falsely circulated with links to Nizamuddin Markaz
By Satya Priya BN Published on 3 April 2020 6:16 AM GMT
Hyderabad: More than a hundred people have tested positive for coronavirus and a hunt is on for suspected cases after a large religious gathering at Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz emerged as COVID 19 hotspot.
More than 2000 people were evacuated from the Nizamuddin building, and several people are reported to have left the premises after attending the congregation held from March 13 -15. Several states are now on high alert and testing every person who came in contact with the people who attended the congregation.
As this news started spreading, a video showing people in Mosque sitting on their knees and praying. This video is shared virally with a claim that "Purposefully sneezing in the mosque to spread the virus in Hazrat Nizamuddin mosque in Delhi"
Fact Check:
This claim is FALSE.
When keyframes from the video were extracted using the Invid tool, and are searched with Google reverse image search, we found that this video is in circulation for the past few months.
This video has been shared by Pakistani users with a claim Ś©Ų±ŁŁŲ§ ŁŲ§Ų¦Ų±Ų³ Ł¾Ų§Ś©Ų³ŲŖŲ§Ł Ł¾ŪŁŚ ŚÆŪŲ§Ūššwhich means "Corona enters Pakistan" on social media.
It has been shared on Facebook on January 30, 2020
and also on Twitter on January 31, 2020
It is also been uploaded on a youtube channel named Islami Lara Ų§Ų³ŁŲ§Ł Ū ŁŲ§Ų±Ū on January 29, 2020.
In this video, we can hear people breathing heavily and moving their heads vigorously up and down. When searched, we found that it is called Zikr or Zikir. This is a method of praying followed majorly by people following the Sufism school of thought.
Though the origin of the video could not be found, this does NOT belong to Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi. Also, this is NOT a purposeful sneezing technique used to spread the Corona pandemic in India.
Therefore, the above claim is FALSE.
